1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a snap-in chuck assembly. More specifically, the present invention is directed to a chuck assembly which has a chuck body mounting conventional jaws which can be moved inwardly and outwardly of a central chuck bore to grippingly engage a shank of a tool, such as a drill bit or a screwdriver or a Phillips screwdriver, but which also has radially inwardly and outwardly movable detent structure, such as a ball, which can be moved into and out of engagement with an annular groove in the shank of a specially configured tool, to hold the tool in the chuck assembly without moving the jaws.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Heretofore chuck assemblies have utilized a special tool called a key for causing movement of jaws in a chuck radially of a central chuck bore to move the jaws radially inwardly and outwardly for gripping or releasing a tool received in the central chuck bore.
More recently chucks have been developed having a hand rotatable outer sleeve which can be rotated relative to a chuck body for moving the jaws of the chuck inwardly or outwardly of the central bore of the chuck without using a key.
Also, snap-in adapters and magnet adapters have been developed for holding tools in a tool holder where the tool holder has a stem which is fixed in the jaws of a chuck.
Examples of previously proposed analogous and non-analogous chuck assemblies and tool holders for chucks are disclosed in the following analogous and non-analogous U.S. patents:
______________________________________ U.S. Pat. No. Patentee ______________________________________ 3,945,653 Falche 4,188,041 Soderberg 4,199,160 Bent 4,692,073 Martindell 4,900,202 Wienhold 5,013,194 Wienhold 5,193,824 Salpaka 5,417,527 Wienhold 5,458,445 Bader et al. 5,464,229 Salpaka 5,465,983 Owens et al. 5,470,180 Jore 5,674,031 Bilz et al. ______________________________________
As will be described in greater detail hereinafter, the snap-in chuck assembly of the present invention can be a stand alone chuck or can be incorporated into a conventional chuck presently available on the market having jaws which are radially movable inwardly and outwardly of a central chuck bore of the chuck for gripping a tool and has a mechanism for allowing movement of a movable detent structure into and out of engagement with an annular groove in a shank of a tool or tool holder. In one embodiment, the central bore is non-circular, such as a hex bore for receiving a hex-in-cross-section shank of a tool having the annular groove therein.